The Architecture of the Hospital: A Study of Spatial Organization and Medical Knowledge — Prior 1988

After a review of recent developments in the sociology of spatial organization and an examination of the ontological and epistemological assumptions underlying current theorizations of space, a number of arguments concerning the interrelationships between forms of knowledge, social practice, and physical design are presented. Using architectural plans, these arguments are then developed in relation to the study of the spatial organization of hospital wards in three contexts: the care and treatment of children, the containment of insanity prior to 1845, and the management of psychiatric patients between 1973 and 1982. The conclusion of the paper is that spatial organization schemes are best understood in relation to the discursive practices of which they are a part, rather than as decontextualized and reified social facts with their own "logic."

Prior, L. (1988). The Architecture of the Hospital: A Study of Spatial Organization and Medical Knowledge. The British Journal of Sociology, 39(1), 86–113. https://doi.org/10.2307/590995